OCT-A-7
ASSEMBLING THE “DREAM TEAM”
FOR LINGSHED-‘03
From: Glenn Geelhoed
To: "herugo@earthlink.net".IA4GW.Harper
Date: 10/9/02 11:18AM
Subject: Re: You have photos from PhotoWorks
It sounds good! The "prosumer" level is definitely the way to go, since it also allows "on the trail" candid and spontaneous recording rather than a stop/set up/ pose sequence. A couple of our number had sophisticated digital recording devices that were not in any trouble unless on an aircraft where the batteries contained in them was a problem.
I had no trouble at all in this area among very friendly and grateful people. It lies inside an area of high geopolitical sensitivity, but once we are there, all of that seems to have faded into someone elses' headlines, and every one there is in very collaborative groups in a medieval subsistence pattern isolated from both governments and very surprised when we tell them that they are at the center of a world‑wide concern. "And haven't you known that this struggle has been going on for 52 years?" Is their reply.
I have two very special people to tell you about.
One is Virginia Bell Croskery. The "Bell" is from Alexander Graham whose descendant she is, as well as niece of Damon Runyon‑‑but all of these names will change when it becomes "Geelhoed."
She is a professional Opera Singer, and currently artist‑in‑residence at Simpson College in Iowa, while she is getting her doctorate from the University of Iowa's Music Department. Her other passion in life is a 17 ˝ hand jumper named "Porter."
She has made a previous medical mission with me to Ladakh, where she took over and organized the pharmacy, regulating all of our drug stocks‑‑about half the volume of supplies we will be carrying in by packstock
Her sister, Kate C. Jones, in this remarkable family, was a highly successful lawyer who wanted to do more to help people directly, so she attended and graduated from Bowling Green college, Ohio State Law School and then Northwestern University Seminary near her home in Evanston Illinois where she lives with her neurologist husband and her two children, and is now an ordained Methodist minister. She has been dreaming of accompanying me on a medical mission some day and ideally would like to be on one with her sister‑‑and Virginia was booked last year for the inaugural Lingshed trek when she had conflicts with a couple of singing gigs and her degree program's completion. This has been her sister's target for personal performance enhancement: she has been running up to seven miles per day, has shed 25 pounds with her ideal target weight to be achieved by Christmas and is busy reading up about the trek, starting with my Trek Log and Photo Albums. I am prepping a slide show to be carried to Chicago Dec. 10 as an introduction to "Lingshed‑'03"
I have suggested that the two sisters come in early to Leh, Ladakh, to acclimatize and to see a few of the sights while we go through a graduated drill from walking around after a day of rest after landing at the world's highest jet airport at 11,890 feet, doing a bit of touring around Leh and its sights I have seen often, and then a few runs through some of my favorite running routes to get ready for the trek after this few days of physiologic shakedown, guided by the pulse oximetry which will help gauge accommodation.
If we need or have additional time in Leh, I suggest a white water rafting trip down the Indus River as well as my own goal‑‑a climb up Stok Kangri‑‑the highest peak in Ladakh, something I have arranged multiple times, but have been tripped up by short scheduling or by inability to accommodate quickly to altitude by one or another of my accompanying trekkers.
Gene Curletti MD is a former GWU graduated surgery resident of mine and a good friend who has shared prior adventures with me‑‑one notable one in Kazakstan when I wandered lost in the High Altai (see attached‑‑a more dangerous situation than the Kashmir, where I survived two direct attacks by large carnivores‑‑‑and, as Virginia would quickly point out‑‑‑"but the horse did not!") Gene is in Pittsfield Massachusetts with his wife Dolly, and both have been talking about trying to join one of my medical missions for some time‑‑and are only working on the conditioning for the trek since she had had a couple of surgical procedures on her cervical spine. I am prepping the same slide show for them that I will give on my frequent‑‑at least annual‑‑visits to the Berkshire Medical Center, where I have been their most frequent visiting professor over the past two decades or more. This will be the realization of a "Trip of a Lifetime" for everyone involved‑‑‑even for me, for whom "once in a lifetime" occurs five times a month!
Hem Thakur has just been married last week. I have been teasing him about this event for some time and his preparation for it‑‑but he might be more ready than I! He did not know much about his bride, but was given a picture of her by the family who arranged the marriage‑‑she is the one of the 24 people in the group picture! Hem is a very flexible and amazing fellow who will roll with all punches in handling all the local arrangements from hiring horses, supplying food for a group he may not always share as a strict vegetarian and explain the songs and ritual hand signals of Indian dances, as well as conducting meditation classes for stress relief among the crew. he and I have "double teamed" a score of these treks, none as challenging or as rewarding as the Lingshed‑'02‑‑which you see with Hem and me posing in the last set of pictures at the junction of the Zanskar and Indus Rivers or at the Nun‑Gun snow‑capped Greater Himalayan Massif (twin 7,000 meter peaks we will skirt as we leave down the Sura Valley, the only Shia majority region in all India, amid an almost exclusively Buddhist population we will be treating.)
I will tell you more and directly introduce you to many of the players in advance‑‑but each are selected for their flexible, sincere and earnest multi‑talented approach to helping, but also their humor‑‑all of which take precedence over the super‑jock status of accomplished climbers. With apologies to the reigning diva, there is not a prima donna on board!
Everything about this trip is superlative‑‑above all its photogenicity!
You are going to love it!
Cheers!
GWG
>>> "Roger Herr" <herugo@earthlink.net> 10/08/02 07:02PM >>>
The solar panels sound like the way to go. I'll have to find out the exact
power needs for the camera batteries so that they can continue to be charged
for shooting after the sun goes down. I will talk to a few folks who
perhaps have had experience with the system and can help guide me with the
correct purchases.
As for your hand picked team let me know a bit about them so that I can add
their names and stories to the proposed show. I know many details have to
be handled before such an undertaking and one in particular is the
sensitivity of the area and whether or not government agencies would permit
TV camera documentation of the medical mission to take place. Is there some
way we can get a head start on such logistics?
I will probably be taking in small cameras that are a notch above consumer
grade (we call them prosumer) in order to keep weight and bulk to a minimum.
In addition I will be working with wireless microphones that may raise a few
flags due to their sophisticated electronic nature. I just want to be sure
we can pull this off before we get too far down the road and possibly get
shut down because of the geopolitical dynamics.
Let me know what I can do on this end.
rog
‑‑‑‑‑ Original Message ‑‑‑‑‑
From: "Glenn Geelhoed" <msdgwg@gwumc.edu>
To: <herugo@earthlink.net>
Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 4:02 PM
Subject: Re: You have photos from PhotoWorks
> Yes! Carrying a solar panel is a good idea, but it can sometimes get a
> bit cloudy, reducing the power input to storage batteries.
>
> I have spread solar panel "blankets" over the packs on the horses or
> donkeys as we trek under the overhead alpine sun by day, which has been
> good for charging the units you would be using. It was what we had once
> used for the satellite phone‑‑but had to remember that trekking by day
> meant that the later hours were not best for both calling and charging
> the units‑‑although when we are in a fixed base such as a clinic, the
> system works well, since it is both used and charged by day.
>
> The solar future is here now in the Himalayas. I will show you
> pictures when we get together that shows even the smallest of the
> hamlets have solar chargers for storage batteries so that thiere is a
> light in a village with 35 people in it, thanks to the "Hill Country
> Development Program" which pro‑rates the charges for things like solar
> panels or passive solar parabolic water heaters or ovens according to
> the distance from the nearest road. Where we will be, the cost of a
> solar panel is one tenth what it would be in town, and one fourth what
> it would be one day from the roadhead.
>
> I am getting together a handpicked crew for this excursion and the
> selected few are very excited about it.
>
> Cheers!
>
> GWG
>
> >>> "Roger Herr" <herugo@earthlink.net> 10/08/02 02:22PM >>>
> Glenn,
>
> Thanks for sending along the photos. I'm getting a proposal together
> for
> various TV outlets. Hope that one will pick it up. How would one
> charge up
> camera batteries while on the trek I can't imagine any sources for
> electricity at hand and a generator would be too heavy. Any thoughts?
> I'll
> call around and see if anyone has a solar charger.
>
> Roger
> ‑‑‑‑‑ Original Message ‑‑‑‑‑
> From: "Glenn Geelhoed" <msdgwg@gwumc.edu>
> To: <Geelhoed5@cs.com>; <holtvlum@gvsu.edu>; <dgeelhdsl@iserv.net>
> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2002 10:12 AM
> Subject: Fwd: You have photos from PhotoWorks
>
>
> > Here is an interesting series in the latest roll of pictures from
> > Lingshed Himalayas to North Carolina mountains to Derwood
> woods‑‑from
> > hiking boots to tuxedos, and with a group of fellow travelers I
> believe
> > you might recognize‑‑not to mention a magnificent snow sheep ram I
> had
> > last met in Kamchatka, now come back home to Derwood in life‑like
> > natural habitat!
> >
> > The cool fall mornings have signaled the time to get out and
> run‑‑with
> > the 27th Marine Corps Marathon coming up right after the climb up
> > Capital Peak as the golden aspens fall in Colorado!
> >
> > The plans for the further schedule of 2003 travels are also
> appended.
> >
> > Cheers!
> >
> > GWG
>
CC: Gene Curletti; hem thakur; Virginia Croskery